What we know about academic users of ejournals (Virtual Scholar)
Professor David Nicholas
CIBER, UCL Centre for Publishing
School of Library, Archive and Information Studies
University College London
david.nicholas@ucl.ac.uk
www.publishing.ucl.ac.uk
Massive environmental changes
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From control to no-control, from mediated to non mediated
From bibliographic systems to full-text, visual, interactive ones
From niche to universal systems
From a few searchers to everybody
From little choice to massive choice
From little growth to massive growth
From stability to volatility
Paradigm shift, no grip, floundering
• Existing knowledge base obsolescent, flawed, wholly inadequate.
Hard-copy paradigms
• We don’t even know what questions to ask anymore
• We are left generalising about too many people
• Should be spending lots of time and money researching the
user…but [still] are not
What is going on then?
• Came from the Media and Heath fields with a proven
methodology deep log analysis
Deep log analysis: attractions
• Size and reach. Enormous data set; no samples
• Direct/immediate record of what people have done: not what they say
they might, or would, do; not what they were prompted to say, not what
they thought they did
• Data are unfiltered and provide a reality check sometimes missing from
questionnaire and focus group
• Data real-time and continuous. Creates a digital lab environment for
innovation and the monitoring of change
• Raises the questions that need to be asked by questionnaire, focus
group and interview. These methodologies are an essential part of DLA
Virtual Scholar programme
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Emerald Insight
Blackwell Synergy
ScienceDirect
OhioLINK
Oxford University Journals
Key characteristics of the virtual scholar -
big and growing appetite
• Seemingly massive demand for scholarly information, and
rising – improved access the driver. That is the good news.
• Not only are more people being drawn into the scholarly net,
also existing users can search much more freely & flexibly.
However, this is the bad news, while librarians have been
responsible for many access initiatives, their contribution has
not been widely recognised (to put it mildly).
Key characteristics of the virtual scholar -
bouncing
• Widespread, pronounced and endemic form of digital
information seeking in which a high proportion of users view
only few web pages from vast number available and a high
proportion (usually same ones) do not return to the same
website often, if at all.
• Suggests, at best, a checking-comparing, dipping sort of
behaviour that is a result of search engines, shortage of time
and huge digital choice; or, at worse, massive failure at the
terminal.
Key characteristics of the virtual scholar ‘reading’
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People appear to be skimming rather than reading. Download a
devalued currency?
Fact 1. People do not ‘read’ online. However, users spend more time
‘reading’ shorter articles online than longer ones. Neither of times,
respectively, 42 and 32 seconds, suggested anyone was doing anything
more than scanning.
Fact 2. As length of article increases greater chance it will only be
viewed as an abstract and less chance that it will be viewed full text.
Implications. a) shorter articles have better chance of being read; b)
users must be downloading and reading offline, but all the time? Digital
osmosis?
Fact 3. In answer to Q ‘Do you always read the full paper before you cite it in
your work’, over half of researchers said it depended/didn’t.
Implication. Seems to support usage data
Key characteristics of the virtual scholar -
diversity
• Move away from hits to users. Nobody works with millions
of diverse users. Real differences between various types of
user, especially in regard to their subject field; academic status
and geographical location. We have also found, in some cases,
big differences - according to gender, type of organisation
worked for, type of university, and attitudes towards scholarly
communication. We should rejoice in this.
Some diversity examples
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Age of material. Users from Economics (71%) and
Engineering (71%), made most views to current (one-year old)
material in session; Material Science (51%) and Mathematics
(52%) users the least. Scholars from Spain and China more
likely to view current material. Increased visibility has meant a
large increase in usage of older material
Return visits (over 5 months). Mathematicians most frequent
visitors, with 41% coming back 15+ times. Engineers made
least returns, with 54% making 1 visit. Repeat visits increased
with age.
More diversity
• Abstract use. Increased markedly with age of users - 14% of
those aged 36-45 undertook an abstract-only session, which was
half that recorded for those aged over 56.
• Searching. E. Europeans (47%) recorded a relatively high % of
searches resulting in zero returns. N. Americans appeared to be
‘successful’ searchers - 74% of their searches resulted in one or
more matches. However, overall, Germans most ‘successful
searchers (more hits, less zero searches).
Key characteristics of the virtual scholar - trust
Authority and relevance to be won (and checked).
Determining responsibility/authority a problem, take a researcher
working from office:
• Conducting Google search to find Synergy. On connection cookie
identifies them and full text access provided. Now that researcher used a
Microsoft Browser, then Google, then Synergy and then arrived at Journal
of Computer-Mediated Communication. Might or might not have known that:
a) the Library had paid the subscription, hence full-text access; b)
Synergy came from Blackwell and journal was published on behalf of
International Communication Association. Where does authority lie and
what does it mean?
Differences between age groups. Tesco example.
Key characteristics of the virtual scholar –
increasing dominance of search engine searching
Big implications
• Key usage driver – Nucleic Acids Research
• People using search engine were:
– far more likely to conduct a session that included a view
to an older article;
– more likely to view more subject areas, more journal
titles, and also viewed more articles and abstracts too.
• Undergraduates most likely to have used the search
facility: 46% had compared to 26% of postgraduates, 19%
of researchers and 15% of professors or teachers.
Nucleic Acids Research: article views 2003-2005
14000
12000
10000
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19 PR 00
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04 EB 00
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18 A N 20
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04 O 0
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15 EP 20
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28 U 00
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14 UN 20
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30 A - 20
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15 M A 00
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31 EB 20
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14 E 0
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30 O 20
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15 C 20
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01 U 00
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17 UL 20
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03 M A 20
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19 PR 00
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04 EB 00
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18 A N
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Challenges - decoupling
• From users. Anonymous, work remotely. Not even conscious
of library involvement. Publishers have got closer. We have
COUNTER, but not enough
• From Faculty. As the library ‘tax’ increases and information
seen to be ‘free’ and ubiquitous, impact and outcome data
increasingly demanded. The car park question.
• From publishers. Librarians have alienated their old mates, the
publishers, over OA and repositories. Had such a cosy
relationship.
Between rock and a hard place somehow comes to mind
Challenges – getting closer to the user
• Have been bleating on about users for years, but have not made
anywhere near as much progress here as we have with technology
• Libraries full of technological & processing people. How many have a
department dedicated to following the users every move and relating
that to academic outcomes and impacts?
• Even in face of a possible melt down (for some) there is a sense that
only technological innovation is the answer –federated searching the
latest solution or the last hurrah?
• The big challenge is understanding/accommodating the concept of
the digital information consumer and dealing with questions arising
from the logs
Challenges – information literacy, brand etc
• Problems in information seeking suggests that
information literacy programmes could be evidence-led
and outcomes tested
• People searching horizontally – implications for
information providers?
• Accreditation, trust, brand, authority – what can be done
and is federated searching the answer?
Conclusion
• Warning. What I have been talking about does not come from the
opinions/perceptions of small numbers of people. Not talking it
up, just sharing data and ideas with you.
• It is not too late, still more to be won than lost
• But not much time, e-books (and we are studying the impact) could
be the tipping point
• Need leaders, demonstrating best practice through a genuinely
evidence-based, user-focussed, consumer-friendly, Googlecompatible and flexible service
Some illustrative readings
www.publishing.ucl.ac.uk
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Huntington P, Nicholas D, Jamali HR , Rowlands I. Article decay in the digital environment: a usage analysis
by date of publication employing deep log methods. Journal of the American Society for Information Science
Technology, 57(13) 2006, pp1840-1851.
Nicholas D and Huntington P. Digital journals: are they really used? Interlending and Document Supply, 34(2),
June 2006, pp74-77
Nicholas D and Huntington P. The virtual scholar. Online Information 2006, 19-22
Nicholas D, Huntington P, Jamali HR, Dobrowolski T. Characterising and evaluating information seeking
behaviour in a digital environment: spotlight on the 'bouncer' Information Processing & Management 43, 2007,
pp [in press]
Nicholas D, Huntington P, Jamali HR, Tenopir, C. Finding information in (very large) digital libraries: a
deep log approach to determining differences in use according to method of access. Journal of Academic
Librarianship, 32 (2), March 2006, pp119-126
Nicholas D, Huntington P, Jamali HR , Tenopir C. OhioLINK – ten years on: what deep log analysis tells us
about the impact of Big Deals. Journal of Documentation, 62 (4) July 2006, 482-508
Nicholas D, Huntington P, Jamali HR, Watkinson A. The information seeking behaviour of the users of
digital scholarly journals. Information Processing & Management, 42(5), 2006, pp1345-1365.
Nicholas D and Rowlands I. Towards evidence-based publishing. Science in Parliament, 63(4), Autumn 2006.